looked down over
the hollow toward the house. The entire plantation was a sheet of water,
and, in the middle, still stood the house, the water half-way up its
first story.

Rex set his forelegs firmly on the ground and barked fiercely, with
loud, explosive barks that rang through the storm like the successive
discharges from a small cannon.

Then, out of the rain, faintly through the distance, a shout was heard.
It sounded like a boy's voice.

"It's Anton!" cried Ross. "He's been left behind! And that house is apt
to go to pieces any minute!"

The first thought that sped across his mind, as he peered through the
darkness to the dim outlines of the white house, was to hurry back to
the Forecaster for help. Even as this thought came to him, however, Ross
realized that such action might be of little use. Already the waters of
the flood, swirling around the house, undermined it every moment, and it
would take a long time to portage a boat all the way from the levee to
the hollow, now in the wild sweep of the torrent.

Then Ross remembered that, a couple of years before, when a wet summer
had caused a considerable quantity of water to gather in the hollow,
forming a small lake, Anton and he, together with the rest of the boys,
had built a rough boat. They had played the whole story of "Treasure
Island" in this craft, Anton, with his crutch, taking the part of Long
John Silver. The boat was a rough affair, as he remembered it, something
like an ancient coracle, but it had been water-tight, at least. Perhaps
it would be sea-worthy, still. At least, it was worth a trial.

Turning his back on the building that was islanded by the flood, Ross
raced as fast as he could to the little block-house on the ridge that
the boys had built two years before, near which he hoped to find the
boat. Twice he stumbled over a root in the darkness and fell headlong
into the mud and water. Still, as he could not be any wetter than he was
already and as he did not hurt himself, a few falls were no great
matter.

On the ridge, fast to the block-house, to which level the water had not
yet reached, Ross found the boat. Moreover, to his great delight, he saw
that Anton had been patching it up, so that it was now more serviceable
than ever.

It was a different matter, punting this home-made boat around the waters
of a pond on a calm summer's day, and striking out with it in a blinding
storm across the flooding lowlands of the Mississippi River.